The opening of a new grocery store might not seem cause for celebration in some neighborhoods. But in Yorktown, a pocket of north Philadelphia that has gone without a supermarket for eight years, a new store will be a gift.

Shoppers peruse the produce section at The Fresh Grocer supermarket in West Philadelphia.

Coke Whitworth, AP

"Some say I won't believe it until I see it," says longtime resident Marie Smith, 73, who is awaiting the market that is scheduled to open next fall. "We need it really desperately."

Local officials and nutrition advocates in cities from Boston to Oakland are pushing to bring full-service grocery stores to poorer neighborhoods, increasing residents' access to healthful food and creating an economic anchor for struggling communities.

"A lot of issues caused supermarkets to close down and not want to come back," says Pennsylvania state Rep. Jake Wheatley, a Democrat from Pittsburgh. "But now people have seen the need. ... It's an economic and health issue."

Among the initiatives:

• Pennsylvania has given $6.2 million since March 2004 to help supermarkets open in urban and rural neighborhoods that need them.

• Boston has spent more than $17 million since 1999 to help develop supermarkets, including the first in 25 years to open in the working-class community of Grove Hall.

• A citizens' group in western Oakland is trying to open a grocery store that would be owned by its employees.

• Five full-service grocery stores have opened in the past two years in Baltimore, where city officials began recruiting grocers in 2002.

"There's emerging evidence that when people live in neighborhoods with supermarkets, their diets are healthier," says Hannah Burton of The Food Trust, a Philadelphia-based nutrition advocacy group that is a partner in Pennsylvania's effort. "So there's interest in lowering obesity and diet-related diseases like cancer and heart disease ... by increasing access to affordable and nutritious food."

A national problem

The dearth of full-scale groceries in poorer areas is a national problem, nutrition advocates say. One 10-square-mile, low-income section of Chicago's South Side has no large grocery stores, according to a study in October by the Metro Chicago Information Center.

Traveling long distances for fresh groceries unavailable at a corner store is hard for the elderly and poor, who often need public transportation, says Mari Gallagher, the study's author.

"If you're an older person who needs lactose-reduced milk, it's not good enough to go to the gas station and buy whole milk," Gallagher says. "If you're a child and need a certain diet ... you're not going to find that at the liquor store, which has cigarettes and soups but not the fruits and vegetables you need."

Many grocery chains followed residents who fled cities for the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. Some companies were reluctant to return to cities because of the expense and scarcity of land and worries about crime and job-training costs.

A suburban grocery store might fill 45,000 square feet, offering room for more products, but a crowded urban neighborhood might offer 25,000 square feet or less, whittling away profit. As grocery stores have spread in the suburbs, however, chains have begun to see new possibilities in cities.

"In order to continue to grow your business, you have to find someplace else where competition may not be quite as steep," says Todd Turner of the Food Marketing Institute, the primary trade association for the supermarket industry.

Baltimore launched its supermarket initiative in 2002 by targeting lower-level chains. Now, upscale, full-service stores want to locate in areas they had previously ignored, says William Beckford of the city's economic development agency.

"Their median income might be $15,000 a year, but there's twice as many people," Beckford says of residents in some urban neighborhoods. "A lot of them don't have the transportation. .. so it makes sense to bring (stores) to them."

Appeal to grocery chains

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell has reached out to supermarket chains. State grants and loans help supermarket owners offset the sometimes higher costs of doing business in the city. Of seven stores that received funding, five opened in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Eddystone, Burton says.

A local supermarket also can provide jobs and be a magnet for other businesses.

"It definitely helps to spur neighborhood economic opportunity," says state Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat and a leader of the Pennsylvania initiative, which will create more than 800 jobs.

The Fresh Grocer supermarket in Yorktown will provide more than 230 jobs and be open 24 hours a day.

"Whereas a neighborhood might have been a little depressed, a little scary at night ... most of our stores are open 24 hours a day," says Pat Burns, president of The Fresh Grocer, an independent chain that is building the market. "It becomes a safe haven for someone to go to."

Marie Smith, who drives 15 blocks to purchase fresh meats and vegetables, says not having a grocery store nearby is a hardship.

"It has definitely affected our health," she says. Before, "I could walk around the corner and get my spinach, whereas today I can't. I know that our eating patterns then were much better."

When her husband became ill in June, she blamed the processed food they often ate. "I said, 'Wait a minute. We just have to get in the car and make a trip to the market.' "

While Yorktown awaits its new store, the waiting is over in Spring Garden, a working-class enclave in Pittsburgh.

"We were looking hard for an operator and decided to become an operator ourselves," says Jeff Dzamko, president of the neighborhood subsidiary that owns the Spring Garden Valley Shop and Save, which opened in September.

Residents who had to take at least two buses to buy groceries now can buy fresh food near their doorsteps.

"There's been a dramatic change in the atmosphere in the community," says Robert Herbert, 66, who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly 50 years. "Being retired, I get to see a lot of the neighbors here. It's really like an old-fashioned community store."